03 November 2010

Dems Keep State Senate, GOP Wins State House

With the dust settled from the early Colorado election outcomes, it appears that the state house in Colorado has gone from 37 Democrats, 27 Republicans and one ex-Democrat to 32 Democrats and 33 Republicans.

In the state senate, the partisan divide has gone from 21 Democrats and 14 Republicans to 20 Democrats and 15 Republicans, with a real possiblity that one of the Democratic seats flip to the Republicans in a recount.

Republicans needed to win four Senate seats to reclaim the majority they lost in 2004, but so far have picked up just one, with state Rep. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, beating Sen. Bruce Whitehead, D-Hesperus.

Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, held on to his seat, beating Republican Owen Hill by 252 votes.

In an open Senate seat in Jefferson County, former state Rep. Cheri Jahn defeated Republican Johh Odom.

And in a multi-county seat stretching from the western suburbs to mountain towns, Democrat Jeanne Nicholson was up by six votes over Republican Tim Leonard, according to a tweet from Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora.

In the House, Republicans succeeded in their quest to win six seats to win the majority.

They knocked off five incumbents: Debbie Benefield and Sara Gagliardi of Arvada, Dennis Apuan of Colorado Springs, Joe Rice of Littleton and Dianne Primavera of Broomfield.

The GOP picked up an open seat in Pueblo West with Keith Swerdferger winning the post now hold by Rep. Buffie McFadyen, a Democrat who is term limited.

Still unknown is the outcome in House District 61, where Rep. Kathleen Curry had switched her voter registration from Democrat to unaffiliated and had to wage a write-in campaign.

The Denver Post story on the race didn't resolve the outcome of House District 61, but it appears to have gone to the Democrat. In the House District 61 race, Republican Luke Korkowski of Mt. Crested Butte and Democrat Roger Wilson of Missouri Heights near Glenwood Springs faced each other in the five county district, with incumbent Rep. Kathleen Curry running as an independent write in candidate. She had been part of the Democratic caucus, but left the party last year in a move that limited her access to the ballot as a partisan candidate.

The unofficial final results from Garfield, Eagle, Pitkin, Hinsdale and Gunnison counties showed Wilson, the Democrat, leading Korkowski, the Republican, by 8,477 to 8,159 votes, with 5,349 write-in votes cast (plus an additional unknown number of write-in votes in Gunnison County), presumably almost all for Curry. To win, she would have needed to get more write-in votes in her home county of Gunnison than the other two candidates combined secured in Gunnison County, whcih is highly unlikely. So, House District 61 will probably go to Democrat Roger Wilson of Missouri Heights.

The loss of control of the state house is huge, forcing Democrats who will control the state senate and Governor's office into a position similiar to Democrats at the federal level, and denying them unfettered control over the redistricting process, unless they could persaude one of the newly elected Republicans in the state house to change parties.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat is now Governor-Elect, together with his Lieutenant Governor Joe Garcia. But Republican Scott Gessler won the race to be Colorado Secretary of State, Republican Walker Stapleton won the race to be Colorado State Treasurer, and Republican John Suthers retained his position as Colorado Attorney General.

Republicans retained control of the state board of education and the CU-Regents by one vote margins. All appellate judges facing retention elections were retained.

In federal races in Colorado, Democratic U.S. Senator Michael Bennet narrowly held onto his seat, but incumbent Democrats Bestsy Markey in the 4th Congressional District and John Salazar in the 3rd Congressional District were defeated by Republicans Cory Gardner and Scott Tipton respectively.